Scrapbook Quest for Sound Memories
Kate Volkman
Project Associate
1500 - That's the number of messages we received on our Quest for Sound
voicemail over the last year. That's how many of you found a cassette,
78rpm record, wire, acetate, or CD holding audio treasures - grandmothers
singing, fathers sending letters home during the war, you playing disc
jockey, an uncle telling a family story.
As I listened to message after message on the voicemail, I realized there's
a lot to be said for making an audio record. It's something so precious
that you'll always be thankful for. So many of you told us about a loved
one who passed on. And in your voices there was a sense of sadness, but
also of fulfillment - that you have something of that person - something you
can hang on to forever - something you can share with future generations.
Your recordings are rich with history and emotion, and just plain good
stories - funny stories, sweet stories. Like the one where a woman called
to share an answering machine message she received from the daughter she had
given up for adoption. Or the one where an Irish-American man told the
story of his coming to America. His father was already here saving money to
bring his wife and 5 children over when his sisters secretly arranged an
appearance on the TV show "It Could Be You." The show paid for the family's
entire trip and topped it all off with Christmas gifts for their new life in
the U.S.
The story I find myself telling over and over again as I describe the Quest
for Sound is the Gettysburg Eyewitness. It was one of the first Quest
stories we told on our weekly Lost & Found Sound segment. It's a recording
of William Ravthon, who as a nine-year-old boy watched and listened to
Abraham Lincoln deliver his address at Gettysburg in November 1863. He later
told the story in 1938 on 78 r.p.m. record which was brought to our
attention by his relatives. This is history. No other Gettysburg
eyewitness is known to have recorded memories on record.
Although not all of your recordings may be as publicly and historically
important as Ravthon's, they are important to you. And I realized that they
are important to me as well...because they encouraged me to make my own
recordings.
While on family vacation in August, I interviewed my grandparents about
their early life experiences. Their parents were born in Germany and
emigrated here in the early part of this century. When my grandmother was
18 years old, she and her mother returned to the old country to visit
relatives. She described their homes, their faces and their names. As I
sat next to her on the porch that night at the beach, I wanted her to talk
forever. And now that I have her on audio tape, she will.
Kate Volkman
Project Associate
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Copyright © 1999 The Kitchen Sisters
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